The first recipient of the Ohio Heritage Fellowship for community leadership, Carolyn Mazloomi is an artist, author, and curator and one of the most influential African American quilt historians in the United States. Widely exhibited in the U.S. and internationally, her quilts have been included in five exhibitions at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery and can be found in the collections of the National African American Museum, the National Civil Rights Museum, the Mint Museum of Craft and Design and the American Craft Museum. She was one of six artists commissioned to create artwork for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Museum. A resident of West Chester, Ohio, Mazloomi—who has a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering—founded the Women of Color Quilters Network in 1985. Dr. Mazloomi’s books about quilting include Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts, Threads of Faith, Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition and Quilting African American Women’s History.